


The Dead Man's Game

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Series: The Holy Host of the Living Room [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, Demon!Dean, Dysfunctional Family, Episode: s05e08 Changing Channels, Episode: s09e18 Meta Fiction, Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, Expletives, If you haven't seen them this won't make sense, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Season/Series 09 AU, Twinkies, We put the fun in dysfunctional, You can't take the Twinkie out of the Trickster, addict!Crowley, watching porn with angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:59:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's sure Gabriel's dead. He was there for that. He spent decades listening to Lucifer angst about it. But, the angels in his living room aren't so sure. Castiel might have seen Gabriel, recently, and Kafziel is pretty sure he'd have sensed it if his boss was actually dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Question of Life or Death

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I'm writing this series (not this fic) in the wrong fucking order. I have at least two things started that go between this and part one. Assume that Castiel has regained most of his memories, by now, and that he's got his grace back. Tags will update as this story progresses, because I'm trying like fuck not to tag for anything that hasn't happened yet.

"Hey, Kaz?" Sam looked over at the very large angel lying on the couch, laughing into a folder of documents, from one of the Men of Letters' multitude of experiments.  
  
Kafziel caught his breath and rubbed at the corner of his eye. "Can you believe they really thought --" A pause. "Oh, seriously confused face. What's wrong, Moose?"  
  
The 'seriously confused face' morphed into 'Winchester bitchface #56: Don't call me Moose', and Sam took a deep breath, like he might actually say it, but just sighed, and refused to get sidetracked. "You always talk about Gabriel in the present tense. You know he died, right?"  
  
The strangest look crossed Kafziel's face. "No. Gabriel's not dead. Hizkiel is probably dead, but not Gabriel."  
  
"I was Lucifer's vessel. I don't have all of his memories, but I have that one like it was my own hand. Which it wasn't. I wasn't his vessel at the time." Sam closed the book he'd been reading. "I was almost there when it happened. I got Gabriel's 'If you're watching this, I'm dead' message. I had _your_ demon brother's nightmares about killing him. I'm pretty sure he's dead."  
  
"I am reasonably certain you are incorrect." Long, dark fingers slid the documents back into the folder, but the angel's eyes never moved from Sam's face. "I am reasonably certain Castiel agrees with me."  
  
A flutter of wing-noise, and he appeared. "Hello, Sam. Taking my name in vain, again, Kafziel?"  
  
"Never in vain." A lush and dangerous smile darted across Kafziel's face. "We were talking about Gabriel. Sam's under the impression he's dead."  
  
"I know why." Castiel nodded. "What I do _not_ know is if he's correct."  
  
" _What?_ " Sam breathed, betrayal washing across his shock-widened eyes. "No, no. We were there. Me and Dean. He's dead. Lucifer killed him. Lucifer _cried_ about killing him." And that was one of the very few things Sam would give the fallen archangel credit for.  
  
"I saw him again, but I didn't believe him to be real. I was certain he was a symptom of the delusion Metatron had set upon me." Castiel focused on the floor, in that way he did when he spoke of something he did not want to remember. "He said something to me that seemed strange, at the time, and I have never been able to fit it into Metatron's intent, but if it is the truth, then Metatron's intent has no relevance. Something about using his mojo to get back into porn."  
  
"Literally." Sam's eyes lit up, as spectacularly bad ideas began to form behind them. "Dean! Dean, where's that copy of Casa Erotica 14?"  
  
"Don't you fucking sleep?" Dean asked, stumbling into the room in nothing but his boxers, rubbing the stubble on his cheek with one palm.  
  
"Didn't you stop sleeping?" Sam deadpanned. "Seriously, though. Casa Erotica 14."  
  
"You got me out of bed so you could watch porno with angels? There is something wrong with you. There is something wrong with my entire life. My little brother wants to borrow my porn, so he can watch it with two angels of the Lord. Dear god, I know you're not speaking to them, but I hope you're talking to me, because I gotta ask: What did I ever do to deserve this?"  
  
"One, you weren't in bed. If you were in bed, you wouldn't have been able to hear me, and we both know it. We live here. It's our home. You don't need an excuse to wander around in your underwear. Two, not _that_ Casa Erotica. The special edition. The one with the, ah, extra footage?" Sam stared at his brother, willing him to understand, so he doesn't have to say things he'd rather Crowley not overhear.  
  
"Extra footage? What the hell are you-- OH. Oh, _that_ extra footage. With the hotel and the ex girlfriend and the woo-woo." Dean nodded. "Yeah, I think that's still in the trunk. I don't know. It didn't --" _seem right? really belong with my actual porn?_ "-- It just didn't make it inside. I forgot it was there."  
  
"Yeah. Thanks. I'll just go get that." Still deeply absorbed in whatever was going through his head, Sam got up and tried to get past his brother, in the doorway.  
  
Dean grabbed his arm and looked up at him, confused and intent, despite the gleaming black of his eyes. "Sammy...?"  
  
"Don't ask me that. Not now. Not until I'm sure." Shaking off his brother's hand, Sam stepped out into the hall, then turned around and wrapped his arms around Dean. "Just so you know? I love you. Even when you smell like sulphur."  
  
"What the hell? Get off me, you weirdo." Dean huffed, as Sam unwrapped himself and headed down the hall. "And don't you dare do something fatally stupid with my porn, you phillistine!"  
  
Behind him, Kafziel clapped slowly. "Ah, the sound of brotherly love."  
  
"Beats the hell out of you two, and your brotherly getting it on eight nights a week."  
  
"Dean, there are only seven nights in a week," Castiel pointed out.  
  
"He knows that, Castiel. He means that if he wanted to keep up with us, he'd need eight days for each seven we take." Kafziel levelled a terribly smug smile at Dean.  
  
"Too many dicks in this sausage party. And didn't _your_ dad make a rule about not getting it on with your own siblings?"  
  
"Actually, he didn't. He made a rule about not with your father's daughters. Our father didn't have any daughters. To be fair, he also only had one son. And he had us. We don't have genders. The rules don't apply to us." Kafziel stopped looking quite as smug when Castiel's elbow collided with the top of his head.  
  
" _Different_ rules apply to us. And we do have a sister. What about Sophia?"  
  
"I'm pretty sure she'd laugh at you, even if she does prefer female vessels. She's about as much 'she' as we are 'he'. You know that. Besides, I think she's more of an aunt, and I'm not getting close enough to her for it to matter, _anyway_."  
  
"I liked reality better when I didn't believe in angels," Dean complained, stalking out of the room.  
  
"You love us anyway," Kafziel called after him.  
  
"He loves me," Castiel pointed out. "I am less certain about you."  
  
Sam returned, holding a DVD case and looking over his shoulder. "What did you two do to Dean? He's raving about how he'll rule in hell with no regrets..."  
  
"Jealousy," Kafziel suggested, and watched Castiel start to say something. "No, I don't mean envy. I mean he thinks I stole you and he wants you back."  
  
"He doesn't see me in that way, no matter how much you suggest it to him, which I wish you would stop doing, while he still reeks of sulphur."  
  
"That never bothered you with Meg," Sam pointed out.  
  
"That wasn't Meg's body," Castiel retorted.  
  
"Oh, man, really? That's the problem? Dammit." Sam sighed and opened the case, walking toward the television, to put on the disc. "I'm going to need to invest in Febreeze, at this rate."  
  
Castiel's hand settled on Sam's shoulder. "Wait. We shouldn't do this, here."  
  
"He's right. And you should get what you need for the party before we go." Kafziel mouthed the word 'summoning'. "No sense in keeping your brother up all night so we can watch porn."  
  
The case clicked shut in Sam's hands. "Yeah. Yeah, of course. I think we can get most of what we need while we're out. Just a couple things I want to get from my room, before we go."  
  
 _Holy oil, charcoal, that one book with the sigil in it, the concordance..._ Everything else would have to wait.  
  
"Dean? We're taking the porn party elsewhere, so you don't have to hear it!" Sam didn't expect an answer from his brother, but he kept talking as he led the angels up the stairs to the door. "Don't worry about us, we'll be back tomorrow!"


	2. Faith and Twinkies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to anyone who recognises the summoning I used. Which I seriously doubt anyone will... Keep in mind I didn't proof this at all, so there's pretty much guaranteed to be typos and stupid-ass continuity errors.

They settled into some tourist dive, eight states from where they'd started, and not in a straight line. Being the most non-descript of the three of them, Castiel had checked them in. Within minutes, the walls were covered in sigils drawn in blood and charcoal, and salt and holy oil lined the windows and doors. If they were right, they couldn't afford to be found.  
  
Sam sat at the table with a notepad, his laptop, and two books, making a list. "Sugar," he said, looking at the two angels. "Turkish delight, twinkies, halva, Snickers? The sweeter the better. You know what he likes. You probably know better than I do. Also, licorice flowers, purple dianthus, and ... devil's trumpet. That's an unfortunate name for a plant. Silver bowl, because I forgot it. And... I think that's it."  
  
He tore off the page and held it out to Castiel. "This is not one of the best ideas I've ever had, and I know it."  
  
"You may know it, but I don't. Have faith, Sam." Castiel took the list and vanished with a flutter of wings.  
  
"Faith is what got us into this mess," Sam sighed, rubbing the DVD case with his thumbs.  
  
"No, doubting yourself is what got you into this mess. Faith is what got you out of a few things, and love got you out of the rest. On the other hand, love got you into more things than any of us want to talk about, so that's something to take in moderation." Kafziel laughed under his breath. "Not that I think love is something that can be done in moderation. So, try faith for a while. You're usually pretty good at it."  
  
"That was before," Sam started, but Castiel flashed back in, with a flutter of feathers.  
  
"I believe this is everything you requested." Castiel held out his arms, bags dangling from them, and Sam unpacked.  
  
"Ok, the two of you, make potpourri out of the flowers. I have to etch this bowl." Sam unfolded his knife, but Kafziel stopped him.  
  
"Let's not do that. Show me what needs to go on the bowl, you draw the circle, and he'll deal with the flowers. I don't want you ruining a good knife." _Or your hand._  
  
With a shrug, Sam handed over the next sheet from the pad -- Gabriel's sigil with some amplification and binding marks. Taking the charcoal, he sank to his knees and started to sketch on the motel carpet, which was barely deeper than office carpet, and took the charcoal well. A few more minutes saw everything arranged. Flowers in the bowl, in the centre of the circle, splashed with charcoal and holy oil. Candles lit.   
  
Sam took a deep breath and handed the DVD case to Kafziel. "Put it in. It's time."  
  
The intro played, just as it had once before, and as expected Gabriel appeared to give them the bad news they'd already heard once. Dropping a match into the bowl, Sam began to recite.  
  
"Invoco, conjuro, et præcipio tibi, O Gabriel, et appareat visibiliter, et ostende te ante hunc circulum, ad me." Sam's eyes slid shut, and he tried to remember those very few times when he actually liked Gabriel.  
  
The television flickered and brightened, as Sam continued to recite, and flashes of colour danced above the flame, like a station almost coming in.  
  
"In nomine Anaphaxeton, quæ Aaron audissi et locutus est, et qui prodest quod majorem sapientiæ; in nomine Zabaoth, quæ Moys locutus est et flumina factus est sanguis," Sam rambled on, reciting from memory, as much as possible, and keeping his eyes on the page, when he couldn't.  
  
"Hiya, Samsquatch. Miss me?"  
  
Sam kept his eyes on the page.  
  
"Jibril! Don't distract him!" Kafziel hissed.  
  
And that was a flavour he hadn't been called in a dog's age. Gabriel let his blade slide into his hand. "What if I don't want to come back, just yet?"  
  
"It's not about coming back or not coming back. It's about how many pieces you come back in! Shut up! He's almost done!"  
  
Sam stopped speaking and looked up, at last, to the trickster towering strangely over him, angel blade in one hand.  
  
"Who are you?" Gabriel demanded, tossing Kafziel against a wall, with a flick of his wrist.  
  
"Captain, I know you cannot remember me. I bore your standard, before we left. Hizkiel and I were your hands." Kafziel didn't offer his name. He knew it wouldn't help. "You didn't fall. You threw yourself down, and we went with you. I took our names and faces from you, to protect us all. They were coming for us, because they thought we sided with Lucifer. That you remember. I know you remember that."  
  
"Let's say, for a tenth of a second, that I believe you at all. How did _you_ remove my memories?" Gabriel thought he had an excellent point.  
  
"You let me do it. Look at me. Look through me. You of all angels should be able to tell I belonged to you, once." Kafziel suggested nothing about the nature of that apparently obvious ownership. Gabriel would either see it or he wouldn't, and if he didn't see it, he'd see an awful lot of Castiel, who he did remember.  
  
"What have you been _doing_?" Gabriel's golden eyes danced over Kafziel, impressed and somewhat horrified.  
  
"Me," came a voice from behind him, and Gabriel turned to find Castiel.  
  
"Castiel! Little brother..." Gabriel tossed an arm around the little angel's shoulders. "What do you mean, 'you'? You and him...?" There was something of an explanatory hand gesture, or as close as he could manage with a blade in one hand and his other hand over Castiel's shoulder.  
  
Sam just nodded vigorously in their direction, with a pained look on his face.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"I have it on tape." Sam did not sound entirely thrilled with this fact.  
  
"Jibril, you can put me down any time, now..." Kafziel muttered from the motel wall.  
  
"Oh, sorry. But, no. Not yet." Gabriel squinted at Castiel. "Who is this guy?"  
  
"Kafziel, angel of the death of kings. Also, apparently, one of the angels of memory." Castiel pointed to something Sam couldn't see. "Look right there."  
  
"Oh, shit. That _is_ me. Why is that me?"  
  
"He said that you gave him back his grace, in the same way he gave back mine. He said the two of you were responsible for the destruction of Damghan." Castiel looked at anything that wasn't Gabriel.  
  
"I remember Damghan. I just never remember what the hell I was _doing_ in Damghan, when I should have been in this little town in Eastern Jutland." Gabriel took in the room. "I have a suspicion this explains everything, without explaining anything at all. Is that a box of twinkies?"  
  
Sam opened the box and tossed one to Gabriel, who lanced it with his angel blade and tore the wrapper off with his teeth. "Those were my idea. I told Castiel to get whatever he thought you'd like, so there's ... I don't even know. Probably some chocolate around here, somewhere. Gummy worms, cupcakes, what the fuck is this--?"  
  
"The violet pastilles are mine. They are a peace offering, for when we get home." Castiel was once again looking intently at the floor.  
  
Sam blinked. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."  
  
"Mmmmfgh." Gabriel leaned heavily on Castiel, making orgasmic noises around his mouthful of cake and crème. "Marry me, Samsquatch. When we get out of here, just marry me. You dragged me back from ... let's not even talk about that, and you brought me twinkies. I'm in love. It'll last at least fifteen minutes."  
  
"Yeah, I think I'll just stay on this side of the room, until you're done. No offence, but you did kill my brother a couple hundred times."  
  
"I unkilled him, too!" Gabriel protested. "Besides, it was all for you, like I said at the time."  
  
"Yeah, well, all the same, not really marriage material, Gabe. I prefer people who didn't kill my brother, even if that number keeps getting smaller."  
  
"You should probably tell him about Dean," Kafziel suggested.  
  
"You should probably give back his memories!" Sam snapped back.  
  
"I'm stuck to the wall. What's your excuse?"  
  
"I really think it's a visual thing. I mean, you have to see him to really get that it's ok. I mean, it's not ok. Not at all, but it's a lot less not ok than it could be. He's still _him_. Mostly." Sam's mouth snapped shut.  
  
"What happened to Dean?" Gabriel ran out of twinkie.  
  
"I'll tell you later. He's not dead. Again." Sam threw another twinkie. "Wait, when was the last time I saw you? That might be again again. Still, he's not dead. That's the important part."  
  
"Why do I not believe you?"  
  
"Shut up and eat your twinkies, Gabe. I'm not talking about it."  
  
"You should probably let Kafziel down. You're not in any shape to be throwing what little power you have around pointlessly." Castiel actually managed to sound concerned. He'd been working on that.  
  
"For the record, I have a box of twinkies. I could still kick both your asses."  
  
"We're not the ones you need to worry about. And we did just sort of paint a giant blinking arrow on this place, what with the summoning and all." Sam started to pack things up. "We should probably get out of here before anything decides to investigate."  
  
"That is the sound of a man talking sense," Gabriel decided, letting Kafziel drop to the floor. "Where are we going?"  
  
"Cas is taking you. Kaz and I are taking the gear. We'll meet you there. I don't want to talk too much here, and we didn't want to do this, where we're going." Having condensed most of what needed to come with them down to two bags, Sam squeezed Gabriel's shoulder. "Thanks for not being dead."  
  
"Any time!" Gabriel leaned back as Castiel's arms wrapped around him. With a flutter, they were gone.  
  
"Grab a bag. We have to get back before they do." Handing a bag to Kafziel, Sam took his hand. "You know what's going to happen if they land first."  
  
"Six hops?"  
  
"Do it."


	3. Burgers and Exposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Non-stop raving and dickery, in much the fashion that occurs when one's extended family is brought together in a single room. Introducing an archangel to the king of hell! How attached is Gabriel to those twinkies? Didn't Sam say he'd be back 'tomorrow'? What the hell did Castiel want with a roll of violet pastilles? Answers to these questions and more...

Sam and Kafziel slammed through locations, never sitting still quite long enough to register. If anything had tried to follow them, it was going to have a difficult time finding them, at this speed. Finally, they touched down behind the bunker.  
  
Sam looked around, nervously. "Come on, Cas..."  
  
"He'll be here," Kafziel soothed.  
  
"He's with Gabriel." If looks could kill, Kafziel would be out a vessel.  
  
"Yes, but Gabriel _likes_ him. And if nothing else, I'm pretty sure curiosity about Dean is a driving force, here." Kafziel turned to put his back to Sam's, scanning the hill. "You worry too much."  
  
"Says the guy who's got my back."  
  
"Confidence. Faith. Not stupidity."  
  
The sound of wings was sharper, somehow, this time, and followed immediately by Gabriel's voice.  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
"Nowhere." Sam's tension was enough to stop the conversation. "Follow me."  
  
It wasn't until the stairs that Gabriel tried again. "What is this place? You live here? My Sammy-boy is all grown up with his very own art-deco bomb shelter?"  
  
"Kind of."  
  
Before he could explain, Crowley's voice echoed up from somewhere below. "Oh, come on, Moose! Another angel? We're getting outnumbered down here!"  
  
"Gabe, _don't_!" Sam's eyes flew wide, as he threw a hand back to grab Gabriel. As fast as he was, the other angels were faster. "It's ok. Seriously. Yes, that's Crowley. Yes, the king of hell. It's an extremely long story, and I'll probably let Dean tell it, this time."  
  
"Where _is_ your brother?" Gabriel's voice sounded substantially more dangerous than usual.  
  
"From the smell, I'm going to guess he's in the kitchen, making burgers. If you can avoid insulting his current condition, you might get him to make you some pie."  
  
"Fuck pie." As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Gabriel stalked off after the smell.  
  
"Knowing you..." Sam muttered, following him.  
  
"Dean-o! Never thought I'd see you settle down. Nice kitchen." The edge in Gabriel's voice was still razor sharp. He meant to get answers.  
  
And then Dean turned around with a bread knife in one hand, his pitch-black eyes locking on Gabriel. "Gabe." The moment hung between them like so much wet taffy. "Working under the assumption you're really you, what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?"  
  
"Dean, it's ... Ok, it's not ok, but it's as close as we ever get." Sam hovered in the doorway, behind Gabriel.  
  
"This is what you weren't telling me, Sam? The two of you, and _he_ turns into a demon? Oh, bravo. Daddy's going to shit a brick." The edge was distinctly more hysterical, now, but Gabriel hefted his ass onto an unused section of counter. "Gimmie the twinkies, Samsquatch. I have to hear this. The whole story. Start talking, Dean-o."  
  
"It's Crowley's fault," Dean started, as Sam unpacked the bag of snack food into a cupboard beside Gabriel's head.  
  
"It is not my fault," Crowley insisted, occupying the kitchen doorway, now that Sam had vacated it. "It's your granddad's fault for bringing her here, and it's _your_ fault for sewing her head back on. I had to do _something_! She was plotting a hostile takeover!" He eyed Gabriel. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"  
  
"I'd remember your ugly face. If you know me, it's just my legendary awesomeness." Gabriel looked expectantly at Dean. "And?"  
  
Sam dropped a twinkie in the archangel's lap. "Oh, do go on, Dean. I can't wait to hear you explain this."  
  
Dean seemed intent to use as few words as possible. "Abaddon."  
  
"You're kidding me." Gabriel stopped peeling the twinkie wrapper, eyes drifting back up to Dean's face. "Didn't she implode, in the late fifties?"  
  
"No, she time-travelled." Dean turned around and flipped the burgers. "Anyway, we trapped her, she got loose, and Crowley came up with this _great_ idea to kill her with the first blade."  
  
"It _was_ a great idea. You're still alive, aren't you?"  
  
"I don't know, Crowley, _am I_?" There's an art to looking threatening with a spatula, and it was an art of which Dean Winchester was a master.  
  
Castiel elbowed Crowley aside and leaned into the room. "Dean, if you're making burgers, Kafziel and I would appreciate one. Each."  
  
"I start making burgers for me and Crowley, and suddenly, my little brother, who said he wasn't coming home until _tomorrow_ , shows up with three hungry angels," Dean complained, loudly. "Show of hands, right now, how many burgers am I actually making?"  
  
A glance around the room answered that question. "... Everyone except Gabe."  
  
"No offense, I'm sure you make great burgers, but I'm taking my honeymoon with this box of twinkies, right now," Gabriel mumbled around a mouthful of yellowcake.  
  
Dean finally recognised the way Gabriel clung to that twinkie as something other than rapturous delight. "Jesus, Gabe, I didn't even ask. You all right?"  
  
"Yeah, mom, I'm fine. Don't burn your meat." Gabriel crammed the rest of the twinkie into his mouth and reached up between him and Sam for another one. "Abaddon? First blade? C'mon..."  
  
 _Gabe...?_ Recognition settled over Crowley's face, followed shortly by horror, as he launched himself back, aiming to exit the kitchen, but slamming solidly into Kafziel's chest, instead. "I'm standing next to an archangel, and no-one thought to mention it?"  
  
"You recognised him as an angel. I assumed you knew." Castiel shrugged.  
  
"I was waiting for you to notice," Kafziel admitted.  
  
"So, why is he here, and not dead?" Gabriel asked. "I'm still curious."  
  
"Dirty little secret: the king of hell is only half a demon." Sam helped himself to a handful of chocolate-covered pretzels. "I'm not going to say he's on our side, because that's not true. And I'm not going to say we're on his side, because that's not true, either. We've just got bigger problems than each other, right now. Also, Dean's a demon, and that's _everyone's_ problem."  
  
"Oh, Moose, I'm _all_ demon, and you know it. Your blood just makes me all warm and tingly inside."  
  
Sam froze with a pretzel halfway to his mouth. "Ok, that? It's _nothing_ like that. Except for the part where he's mainlining my blood."  
  
" _He's_... your... I thought you..." Gabriel swallowed and tried again. "So, we've gone from you being the boy-king of hell, guzzling demon blood to prep your manly ass for _my_ demon brother, to you being the last bastion of humanity in this increasingly screwed up little household, and keeping the current king of hell hooked on your blood, so he'll take care of _your_ demon brother, who used to be the proverbial righteous man, doomed to bend over for my other asshole brother."  
  
"Yeah, I think that sums up the last four years." The pretzel finally made it to Sam's mouth.  
  
"Ok, so... I'm clearly not up on my demonology, but how did you turn into a demon, Dean? You, who could do no wrong in my brothers' eyes, and so on..."  
  
"He died holding the damned blade," Crowley lied. It was true, but it wasn't quite the answer to that question. "This man didn't stop at turning a knight of hell into fruit salad. Oh, no. He filleted a demigod with his own hands. You did meet Metatron, didn't you?"  
  
"Yeah, we were introduced." Gabriel flicked his eyes toward Castiel, ready to shut him up, if necessary. "Do you just go around trying to pick fights with anything that thinks it's a bigger badass than you, Dean? 'Cause I'm seeing a trend, here."  
  
"Might I remind you it's probably _your_ ass I saved, there?" Dean pointed out, still occupied with the burgers.  
  
"Mmm, no. Sam saved my ass, and every other delectable bit of me, just this afternoon."  
  
"No, Dean's right. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be sitting here, if he and Cas hadn't unplugged Metatron." Grabbing a plate from another cupboard, Sam started assembling a burger for himself. "And I don't think we'd still be sitting here if we tried to make it happen. You're the big man, these days, Gabe. Last archangel standing."  
  
"Unplugged? What exactly did you do...?" Gabriel's eyes lanced toward Castiel, as his hands unwrapped another twinkie.  
  
"I broke the angel tablet. Smashed it, really." Castiel failed to look contrite. In fact, he seemed to be taking some quiet satisfaction in that act of destruction. "I do not believe it can be reassembled."  
  
"Dad's going to kill me." Gabriel's mouth hung open, a smear of twinkie crème on his lower lip.  
  
"If our father meant to kill us for breaking the tablet, Gabriel, we would be dead. The fact that you and I are still here is a sign he has other plans." Squeezing past Kafziel and Crowley, Castiel followed Sam's lead and attempted to assemble a suitable burger. "Perhaps especially the fact that I'm still here."  
  
"Oh, that's sweet, Cas! You sound just like Sammy!"  
  
"Don't fucking call me that, Gabriel."  
  
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. What are you going to do about it, hm?" The smug superiority didn't leave Gabriel's face until he looked up at Sam. Sam who towered over him, glaring like his eyes could start a fire. Sam who had, he realised, probably learned to banish angels, among other extraordinarily useful and dangerous things. "I'm just yanking your pigtails, Samsquatch. Fifteen minutes might've been an underestimation."  
  
"You--!" Sam huffed. "I am taking this burger, and I am going to go out there and put on a movie, which I am going to watch, while I eat this burger. I swear to-- I swear on my left testicle, if I feel anything grope me, I will come back in here and knock you right back into that porno."  
  
"Is it just me, or did he grow a pair, while I wasn't looking?"  
  
"Doom Generation?" Dean suggested, as Sam stalked out.  
  
"Heathers!" Kafziel called after him.  
  
"I'm betting on Dogma," Crowley offered, going after his own burger. "I think he's got a fetish for Alan Rickman's arse."  
  
"Hey, now, just because you've got a boner for Molly Ringwald..." Dean flipped one of the last two burgers onto a bun, for himself. "Not that I'm blaming you, because whoof."  
  
Gabriel choked on a twinkie. "Molly Ringwald? The devil watches Pretty in Pink?"  
  
"I'm not the devil. That's _your_ brother."  
  
"I'm not hearing a denial."  
  
"Are you kidding me? He cries over The Breakfast Club. Cries into his wine, like a middle-aged housewife." Dean shook his head and headed out, after his brother. "Get food. I'll try to stop Sam from putting on anything too soppy."  
  
"Speaking of crying into your wine..." Castiel reached into the pocket of his eternal tan overcoat and produced a purple-wrapped roll, which he handed to Crowley. "I have heard these are excellent in a Riesling. The hint of sugared violet may offset the additional saltiness."  
  
Crowley looked like he'd just been belted in the mouth with a sock full of gold. "I'm not sure whether to be profoundly insulted or thrilled that you've finally accepted me into the family."  
  
"Both," Kafziel answered, several feet from where Crowley remembered last seeing him, and now possessed of a fully-assembled burger. "You should be profoundly insulted he's accepted you into the family. Just think: now you're related to me and Gabriel."  
  
"I am absolutely everything I'm cracked up to be." Gabriel's golden eyes gleamed with amusement as he reached for another twinkie. Disappointment followed, as he failed to find one, and he grabbed the tub of halva, instead. "Sammy-boy? I'm --" A flutter of wings, and the sentence finished from down the hall. "--out of twinkies!"  
  
"What did I ever do to deserve this?" Crowley complained, as Kafziel vanished in a flutter of wings. "Was it throwing in with the Winchesters? It was throwing in with the Winchesters, wasn't it."  
  
"I find that to be the root of so many things," Castiel sympathised.


	4. Family and Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Crowley on speaking terms?! What madness is this? Gabriel and Kafziel have a nice long chat about how things are, how things might have been, and what Gabriel doesn't remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit it. I had the fucking dumb, in the last chapter, but I fixed it. Kafziel has a strange way of speaking, regarding Gabriel, and I corrected something I shouldn't have, but have since un-corrected it. It took me a couple chapters to figure out what was actually going on, there. Speaking _to_ Gabriel, he's always 'Jibril'. Speaking _about_ Gabriel, he's always 'Gabriel'. I still don't know why. I may never know why.

Two hours, a burger, and some well-placed whining about the lack of twinkies later, Castiel had settled onto the sofa with Crowley and a bottle of Blue Nun, to debate the relative merits of the classic wartime romance films. This deep understanding of several centuries of popular culture was, all told, the only thing Metatron really gave him, Castiel thought, other than a sense of perspective, that like all perspective would have been much more useful long before he acquired it.

"You're right. It is better with a hint of violet," Crowley conceded, of the wine. "I never would have taken you for such a sensualist, your nighttime acrobatics aside."

"It isn't written into us, but that doesn't mean we can't take it. In the absence of heaven, a whole world has opened to me, in infinitely minute detail I never had the time or the will to consider." Castiel sipped his wine. "And Kafziel has corrected my perception of taste. The world is much more enjoyable at this magnification, than at either extreme."

"He means the wine doesn't taste like molecules," Dean filled in from the armchair, where he sat, distinctly uncomfortable with his angel and his demon sharing a love of a wine he couldn't stand. Or, really, with them conversing in a way that didn't involve miles of snark and thinly veiled threats. He kind of wished his brother would hurry back with the twinkies, in the hope that might break things up a little.

Elsewhere, Kafziel and Gabriel had settled into a discussion, neither one yet willing to cross the holy oil-filled moat carved into the concrete floor around the bed -- which was one of the few sane places to sit -- which left Gabriel with the only chair in the room and Kafziel sitting on the corner of a dresser.

"You expect me to believe that you've removed my memory of you, and that I not only allowed this, but encouraged it?" Gabriel was still picking at the remains of the halva.

"Don't trust me. Trust the books. I was your standard-bearer. Hizkiel was your aide. We were a team, once. And I can give that back to you, without touching you, because I took it away." Kafziel scratched his beard and shrugged. "I can tell you what you need to do, but you'll have to do it, yourself. Neither of us is stupid, Jibril. I gave you a key that was safe and that you were unlikely to trigger by accident."

"Let's see what you consider 'safe'." Gabriel licked his fingers.

"There's paper and pens in the drawer." Kafziel pointed to the desk Gabriel sat beside. "Draw your own sigil and look at it while you recite the first fifty of the seventy-two names of our father."

Gabriel crumbled, first a wheezing giggle that gradually dissolved into guffaws so strong he rested his head on the edge of the desk, not to fall off the chair. "The first fifty?"

"Hey, I didn't want you accidentally getting dad involved, if it wasn't necessary. You know he doesn't start paying attention until at least sixty-five, but it's _you_ , so I figured a little leeway was probably a good idea. Besides, that was _then_. I think we all thought he might still be listening, then." Kafziel chewed on the edge of his thumb, absently. "And sit on the floor. I don't want to worry about you hitting your head if you fall off the chair."

"Archangel. Demigod. I'm not going to fall down and hit my head."

"Keep in mind that I don't know who else has been in your head, but if I were to guess, Metatron tops that list. Castiel was booby-trapped, and that has some unpleasant implications." The hangnail started to bleed, and Kafziel shook his hand, irritatedly, healing it. "I need to get my work out of the way, and then you can worry about what else you might be missing."

"You really became human, didn't you?" Gabriel stopped arguing, taking a pen and a sheet of paper to the floor with him.

"You had the power to be something so much more. You had the power to protect yourself from almost anything. I was a faith-healer, a magician, a crazy monk with holy powers. You could be a god. I could be a little more than just a man. They were looking for us, Jibril, and we _ran_." Kafziel looked haunted, but unashamed of that decision. "Get your head back on. I need to tell you a story about our brother, out there, and you need to have the context, before I start. It was so much worse than we thought, even before we split up."

Gabriel stared down at the paper between his knees and began to recite, with Kafziel watching him nervously from the other side of the room. He knew all of the names, even if he only had dominion over the last seven of them, and why he had to recite Michael's but not his own... And then it all rolled over him, like a breaking wave. His hands hit the concrete floor, but it wasn't concrete, it was cracked packed earth, and he was panting like he'd run a marathon as a human and the screaming faded into other screaming, and he wasn't panting -- wasn't even in a vessel -- as he levelled the cities of the plain with his voice and his glory, two angels by his sides, ready to bring down his army, if he decided it was one of those days -- and then the day he had called his army, and they broke with him, siding with Michael and Raphael, as he took his two commanders, his left hand and his right, and slammed the gate on his way out. And the floor was earth, and the roof was held up only on his wings, and the screaming and crying had given way mostly to the sound of the wind. And the floor was concrete, and he was bent over a piece of paper with his sigil on it, sweat dripping onto it from his vessel's skin.

"Kafziel." The name is heavy on his lips. "I forgot you once, and you called me back to you, only to make me forget you again."

"I trusted you, Jibril. Don't think I didn't trust you. I didn't trust _them_ , and there were three other angels who could do the things I did. Three of them, Jibril, and at least two of them were still assigned to archangels. I couldn't take that chance. You know your brothers. You know why."

"I am the last archangel." Gabriel hauled himself to his feet, wiping his face with his shirt. "Dad gave up on us. He's just as tired as I am. I feel like I'm still missing a third of my brain, though."

"I have no reason to believe Hizkiel survived the fall. So many didn't."

"But, they fell. We didn't. _He_ shouldn't have." Gabriel's face tensed up, mulishly.

"You missed so much. There was _war_. Not just that throwing dinner plates and shouting names crap that Lucifer pulled -- actual war. Faith-driven angel-on-angel persecution of the kind I thought was the province of man." Kafziel looked deeply shaken, nearly vibrating as he continued. "And Castiel tried so hard to stay out of it -- you know how he gets when things get political -- but, Metatron just kept pushing. We lost so many. Gadreel died for us, died to make right what he'd made so wrong. And I believe I heard Hizkiel's death, as well."

"So, his 'profound bond' with that stubborn martyr in the other room finally broke him of that last loyalty to dear old dad? I got the feeling it might have, when I ran into him. I'm glad. There's so much he could be doing. I'm a little less into that 'how it is writ, thus how it must be' vibe, myself, these days, but you don't say no to the angel holding all the strings." Gabriel reached for the last chunk of halva. "Are you sure Hizkiel's dead? I mean, I did a great impression of dead for a few years."

"I'm not sure of anything, at this point, but that stands out as very probable. And if he died like I think he did, I'm very glad he never remembered our faces."

"Last question. Were we really that stupid? Damghan, I mean. Looking back, that seems like such an obvious precaution."

"You were preoccupied. I wasn't an angel, at the time. Besides, it's not something anyone had actually _done_ , before we did, to the best of my knowledge." This time, Kafziel did look regretful. "So, yes. We really were that stupid."

"And the holy oil moat is because you and Castiel are making excellent use of that bed."

"Yes."

"That's not a very large bed."

"No."

"There room for me in it?" The tone offered a very different innuendo to the words.

"There's nothing to forgive, Jibril." Kafziel answered the question that wasn't being asked.

"Forgive nothing. You going to give me back that piece of my grace?"

"That might be a little difficult."

"We can keep trying until you get it right. I'm a flexible guy."

"I know exactly how flexible you are."

"Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet." Gabriel's golden eyes sparkled. "It's been a couple thousand years."

"Show me." There was something Kafziel had meant to do. Something that was actually somewhat important, but... another hour or two probably wouldn't destroy the world. Not after everything it had already been through -- everything _they_ had already been through.


	5. Cake and Sodomy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's porn. It's like 1900 words of nothing but porn. It might even be incomprehensible porn, since it's two angels who haven't seen each other in a couple thousand years, and angels are a little odd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to apologise for this chapter title. It's got Twinkies and buttsex. It's even more appropriate, if you can name the cities of the plain that Gabriel's credited with destroying. And what the sins of those cities actually involved. I'm just so damn sad I didn't manage to squeeze in any jokes about Gabriel's hundred and forty pairs of wings. Yes, pairs.

It wasn't that Sam didn't appreciate the aesthetics of Kafziel's vessel -- the long expanses of dark skin curving over toned muscle, fluid strands of text tattooed in deep blue rippling with every movement -- but he really could have gone his entire life without unexpectedly walking in on two angels having sex. The long, hissing stage whisper that curled out of Gabriel's mouth would probably have set Sam's ear on fire, if he were paying enough attention to translate it back from ... actually, that might not have been Enochian, maybe it was Arabic, and Sam was totally ok with it being Arabic, since there was absolutely no chance his mind would spontaneously translate it while he was trying to do something else. Like Kafziel had said, Enochian was a system language, not a language intended for erotic poetry, however much it might be so misused by some extraordinarily talented individuals.

And then Gabriel's attention shifted. "Samsquatch? Shut the door; I feel a draft. Tell me you brought me more twinkies. That is the only thing that could possibly improve this moment."

"Yeah, Gabe. I, uh... Do you ..." Sam sputtered, looking at anything other than the angels on the bed, as he stepped into the room and nudged the door shut with his heel. "Should I ..."

"Well, I can't reach through the fire. Toss me a box and put the rest on the desk." Gabriel's eyes crossed as Kafziel's forehead came to rest on his shoulder. "Are you laughing? You're laughing." He gasped and the fingers of one hand dug into Kafziel's side. "That's fine! Keep laughing!"

Sam fumbled with the bag, finally extracting one box and setting the rest on the desk.

"Aw, poor Sammy-boy, so uncomfortable with sex he's not having. We can fix that, you know." Gabriel's grin was predatory.

"He wouldn't survive it, Jibril." Kafziel lifted himself to look down at the grinning archangel under him.

"Of course he would. Whose vessel is that? He's designed for it." Gabriel never stopped grinning. "I could have two monstrously large gentlemen feeding me cakes and satisfying my desires. And I wouldn't have to expend my own power to get it!"

"I always figured you were more for the ladies, Gabe." Sam tossed the box of twinkies onto the bed.

"I'm an equal-opportunity paramour. I engage in all the delights mankind has to offer." He tore into the box of twinkies, one-handed and opened one with his teeth. "Particularly the sugared ones. I am starting to feel a little more like myself. Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem." Sam was still trying his best to look elsewhere, but Gabriel's grin kept catching the corner of his eye. "I'm just gonna--"

Kafziel rolled his hips and Gabriel nearly choked, mangling about half a sentence of what Sam though might be Old Norse around a mouthful of twinkie.

And that was it, for Sam. "Beer. It's beer time. Find me when you're done!"

"You seem _so worried_ about your virgin ass," Gabriel called after him. "Don't worry, I can be gentle!"

"My ass and virgin do not even belong in the same sentence," Sam shot back, slamming the door, behind him.

"He's really not kidding, from what Castiel tells me."

Gabriel tried to sit up and smacked his head against Kafziel's. "He's doing Cas? Is everyone doing Cas, except me?"

"He's not doing Castiel. Our brother is just a voyeur."

Gabriel stared up at Kafziel contemplatively. "That's even kinkier. The last four years really bent him, didn't they?"

"Eat your cake, Jibril." Kafziel punctuated the sentence with a thrust and grind, and Gabriel didn't forget what he was talking about, but he definitely put it aside.

As Gabriel writhed beneath him, still half-distracted by the too-sweet yellow cakes, Kafziel whispered tales of other times against Gabriel's pale neck, punctuated with deep thrusts and nips along the smooth line of his jaw.

"Given flesh, I can finally show you what I didn't know enough to feel, when we helped you scatter fire across four cities on the Canaanite plain, watching your voice shake down the walls, and hearing it resonate through all that I was, all that I could dream of being. I told myself that you were an archangel, and I was supposed to be shaken by your displays of our father's wrath, but I met your brothers, and they did not so inspire me."

Gabriel swallowed and twisted his head to the side. "Are you telling me you've wanted to bone me for nearly four thousand years?"

Kafziel lifted his head, to lick the sticky-sweetness from Gabriel's lips. "And then I spent half of it figuring out what it was, and the other half avoiding you."

"I'm so glad you're done being coy."

"You can't be that glad. You're still talking."

"You'd be amazed what I can talk through. It's a talent." Tilting his hips back, Gabriel stretched, catlike, winding one leg around Kafziel's thigh. "The talking is good, but more fucking."

Nearly ten seconds passed before Kafziel recovered his mind from the deadly angle of Gabriel's hips. "Didn't want you to choke on your twinkies."

"Please. Breathing's optional." Gabriel bobbed his hips, as if he were impatiently drumming his fingers on a table. "You have to explain to me how it is that you've got something that's probably the size of my forearm in my ass, and it still feels like teasing."

"It's not that big," Kafziel growled, letting a few well-timed thrusts demonstrate his point.

Gabriel's back arched and his head tipped back, baring the expanse of his pale throat. "That. Right there. Keep doing that."

Worshipping Gabriel's throat with his tongue and teeth, Kafziel did as requested. "Like that?"

"Mmm, just like that. And now I know why I called you my left hand," Gabriel purred.

A moment passed while Kafziel sorted through a couple thousand years of human humour, and then he fell to his elbows, face pressed to Gabriel's neck as he laughed so hard his eyes watered, still trying to keep his hips moving at that pace Gabriel so enjoyed. The stuttered thrusts seemed to have an even better effect, as Gabriel writhed and twisted under him, clawing at his back with blunted, short nails.

"Do you remember Damghan? When we finally found what we were missing, and destroyed the town? Do you remember that moment before it became horrible, when I was tangled up in your limbs and holding the roof up with my wings? Because that was the first time I actually understood humanity." Gabriel rolled his hips in some way that Kafziel was sure violated the laws of physics. "Remind me what I've been missing."

Kafziel buried his teeth in the milky skin of Gabriel's shoulder, intensely aware of the sudden sensation of being smothered in feathers, as if a feathered cloak larger than his body had been wrapped around him.

"This is what you've been missing, Jibril. It isn't human at all." A strange bi-tonal sound spilled from Kafziel's throat, and he followed it with a few firm words of Enochian, and Gabriel twisted beneath him, bucking and grinding as his true form resonated out from the vessel that pulsed, warm, wet, and thick, against Kafziel's belly.

"You-- you cheated," Gabriel panted, not even trying to crawl all the way back into his vessel, content, for the moment, to remain a column of brilliant blue light, surrounding both their vessels and the bed.

"Mmm, only for you." Kafziel laughed again, hips still in motion, and Gabriel felt his vessel writhe around those amazing vibrations that echoed into hollow spaces he never knew the body had.

"We didn't really take the time, last time, did we?" Gabriel flexed and stretched in more dimensions than his vessel existed in.

"We didn't really _have_ the time. We _destroyed miles of settlements_. There were aftershocks for years." Kafziel's thrusts became shorter and harder, as he rested his lips against the curve of Gabriel's ear. "They were coming for us, then. Never did catch up with us, which I'm sure was your doing."

"Ah! They-- couldn't have -- found their own asses -- nnh! -- with flashlights, in kilts in a gale. And that wasn't all me," Gabriel panted, tensing around Kafziel. "But, this is. Spread your -- your wings, so I can touch them. I want to touch some -- part of you that's -- _you_." He paused and then exhaled another sentence. "This is so much easier when I'm not on two planes of existence."

Kafziel buried his face against Gabriel's neck, cackling like a fool. "Jibril, this is ridiculous. _We're_ ridiculous." His wings unfurled from his back, to be immediately beset by Gabriel's ...hands? feathers? Certainly no part of the archangel's vessel. "I have no intention of stopping on account of hysterical mania."

"Good. I love it when you laugh." While Gabriel thought that was probably unspeakably obvious, given the way his vessel's flesh tensed and twinged, every few whoops, but it was worth mentioning.

"Did I ever touch your wings, before we fell, Kafziel? I think I didn't. I think that was a terrible waste, but there was so much I didn't understand, then. So much _we_ didn't understand." Some part of Gabriel's directed intent clutched at the base of Kafziel's wings, and raced out along what would have been the bones, if angel wings were physical.

Kafziel choked on a laugh, eyes wide, as one of his hands locked around Gabriel's shoulder and the other scrabbled at the sheets. The power, the pleasure, the _reality_ of Gabriel's touch tore through him in ways he couldn't begin to explain, and just as he felt the fire of heaven in his wings, and through the whole of him, his vessel arched back, toes curling, sputtering nonsense, and then slammed back in the other direction, curling around Gabriel, driving into him, teeth sinking into that golden-pale shoulder hard enough to seriously bruise anything that wasn't an archangel. He could feel his grace fragmenting and winding out of him, like a thousand fish in a suddenly dispersed school. And he knew it would come back to him, so he let himself give in to the sudden exhaustion of the flesh, wrapping his vessel close around Gabriel's, as they still danced around each other, blue and open, inside the circle that surrounded them.

"Got it," Gabriel mumbled.

"Nnngh?" Kafziel refused to try for coherence, just yet.

"This piece was mine. I'm taking it back."

Kafziel made a disappointed sound as it absorbed back into Gabriel. "Liked it."

"It's all stained with two thousand years of living. Take this one instead. It's newer. It's more me."

Some unidentifiable sliver of Gabriel pressed into his vessel's mouth, and Kafziel curled some bit of himself around it gratefully, jealously.

"Again?" Gabriel muttered inquisitively, from under the immense pile of sprawled flesh across him.

"Later. 'M busy." Kafziel drawled, quietly.

"You're an angel. You could fix that problem." Gabriel reminded him.

"'S not a problem. Busy tasting you in my bones. Missed you."

"Can I have my arm back? There's a box of twinkies with my name on it." A few sticky-slithy twists and that became possible. "Also, we're trapped. How are we getting out?"

"Lid's folded up under the bed. I'll care in a while."

"I've got twinkies and your dick up my ass. I'm not going anywhere."

Kafziel started laughing again. He really _had_ missed Gabriel, whatever he might say in public.


	6. Beer and Dominion

When Gabriel walked into the room, it was like a wall of holy power had followed him in. The ambient pressure in the room arced up, and a sub-visual crackle ran across everything, including Crowley.

"He's trying to kill me! From across the room!" Crowley leapt off the sofa.

"Siddown, Crowley." Dean tried to remain sensible, but his skin was threatening to crawl off and take up residence in the next room. "If he meant it, you'd be dead already."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." With a sound like a flock of geese taking off, Gabriel contained himself to his vessel, and tilted the half-box of twinkies in his hand toward Sam. "Sam, my man, so sorry you couldn't join us. Conciliatory twinkie?"

"Yeah, actually. Thanks." Sam froze with his fingers in the box. "They're _just_ twinkies, right? You didn't do anything to them? They're not enchanted?"

Kafziel ducked under something Sam couldn't see, as he came into the room, a glass of red wine in one hand and a six of whatever had been bottled and in the fridge, in the other. "If he pranks you with the twinkies, I'll help you kick his ass. Beer?"

Sam let his eyes linger, pointedly on Gabriel as he took a twinkie, and then glanced across the row of bottles stretching across the coffee table, between himself and Dean. "Yeah, I think I could use another. So, what's that tattoo under your shoulderblade, Kaz? I, ah, it was kind of visible."

"I hope it is. Pretty sure Crowley can see it through my chest." Kafziel arched his eyebrows suggestively at the demon on the sofa and sat down next to Sam's chair, leaning back against the arm. "Just a little something I picked up in Morocco. Makes me look like much scarier shit than I am. Keeps most of the nasties off, since I don't look like an angel. Which has, obviously enough, led to the occasional tangle with a hunter, but nothing I couldn't get myself out of. Didn't even have to kill them. Not every hunter is your lunatic brother."

"I am not a lunatic," Dean protested, loudly.

"Understand that I'm speaking in my role as the king of hell, here, Squirrel. I've seen things that would make Alastair piss himself in terror, and you should have been one of them -- would have been, under other circumstances. You're a lunatic. A raving bedlam escapee. Don't get me wrong, it's one of the things I like about you. That and your abject inability to consider your course of action before engaging upon it." Crowley snagged a beer from where Kafziel had set them next to the empties. Castiel tapped the bottle, and the cap popped off, leaving Crowley to refill their empty glasses. "From Riesling to... what is this... cheap and American, no doubt. Pass me another of those sweets, would you, darling?"

"Promise never to call me that again," Castiel demanded.

"Fine, you ghastly hound of heaven. Is that better?" Crowley held out his glass of beer.

"Still inaccurate, but I like it." Castiel dropped a violet pastille into Crowley's glass, and after a moment's consideration, into his own. "I suspect this is an unwise choice."

"What, putting sweets in the beer, or drinking with me? If it's the latter you object to, now's an odd time for it."

"I want it absolutely clear that I objected to this from the start!" Dean threw in, still obviously offended.

"Enough, Dean. Can't you just be glad they're not obviously plotting to destroy each other, over dinner?" Sam sighed and opened another beer for himself, lazily chucking the cap at Dean's head.

"I'm more concerned about what they're quietly plotting. You remember what happened last time they were quietly plotting."

"We may have miscalculated, somewhat! Nobody's perfect!" Crowley protested, twisting to look over his shoulder at Dean.

"Miscalculated. Yes. There was no way we could have expected that." Castiel's shoulders twitched as if he were resettling his wings.

"Oh, you know, except for the part where we actually _did_ expect that, and we tried to _stop_ you?" Dean sniped, reaching for another bottle of beer.

"Dean, let it go." Sam's voice was quiet.

"I'm just pointing out that these two have a _really unfortunate history_ where collaborating is concerned." Dean leaned back, forcefully into the armchair and swigged his beer.

Gabriel's ass settled on the back of the couch, beside Castiel's head. "What have you been getting up to, little brother?"

"He welshed on a deal, that's what." Crowley managed to look impressively offended at the idea. "So little integrity left in the holy host."

Gabriel just laughed. "You think he's bad, you should meet my older brothers. Me, I'm not in the habit of breaking my word. Bending the truth, sure, but ... bending."

"Bending. Yeah, just like you bend reality. What he tells you is a hundred percent true, in whatever universe you're in when he says it," Sam griped.

"You see this? More honesty in Hell, since I took over." Crowley looked smug and slightly ruffled.

Behind Crowley, Dean struggled with the idea, a thousand objections crawling across his face, but never exiting his mouth. "Something fucking wrong with the world," he snarled into his beer.

Kafziel's head tipped back onto the arm of Sam's chair as he laughed, and Gabriel's eyes subtly darkened at the sight. "You're just noticing that? You've been doing this for thirty-odd years, and you're just noticing that?"

"That's _normal_ ," Sam protested. "This is _anything_ but normal."

"Yeah, anything but normal. Because it's only been going on for a sixth of your life, so far, within your field of vision," Gabriel drawled. "Never mind what's been going on behind the scenes for millennia."

"I think we may want to reconsider the idea of 'normal', collectively," Kafziel pointed out.

"Runaway son of a dysfunctional family that sent my brother to kill me, so my other brother would go home? Our father was so tired of us fighting, he walked out. Our brother was so pissed about you mud-monkeys he turned you into his own special toys -- and then he decided he hated his own work and wanted to kill everything. And I'm pretty sure demonic accountants weren't a popular theme until the last half-century, which I'm absolutely sure had something to do with you." He gestured with his beer, first at Castiel and Gabriel, then Sam, then Dean and Crowley. "We're not exactly what generations of poets and preachers were thinking of, when they wrote about heaven and hell."

"So, we're all a little dysfunctional. I still know what normal looks like when I see it," Dean insisted.

"Normal's relative," Gabriel proposed.

"Normal is _boring_ ," Crowley declared.

"Normal and I have never really been on good terms for very long," Sam conceded.

"Normal is irrelevant," Castiel argued. "This is the way things are, right now, regardless of the averages. Do we wish to let this stand, or do we wish to change it?"

"The highest of the holy host and the King of Hell are sitting on the same sofa, in the most well-warded location I have ever had the opportunity to witness. And no-one's got a knife out. I think this is what we wanted, when we walked out." Kafziel lifted his eyes to where Gabriel sat on the back of the couch.

"It could be better," Gabriel pointed out. "You could pass me a beer."

Kafziel gently lobbed a bottle to the archangel.

"Or my brothers could have sorted out their problems in some way that didn't leave me the biggest badass in the known world. That would've been downright spiffy." Gabriel snapped his fingers and the bottle uncapped itself.

"At least two of your brothers had it in for my entire species," Crowley pointed out. "And I didn't much trust the other one, near the end. I like you. You're not looking at me like I'm disposable."

"Nobody's disposable, but we're all going to die. Yeah, even you. Even me." Gabriel's eyes swirled strangely, blue and gold. "Dad lied to us. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe we lied to him, but I don't think we knew how to lie, at the time. He gave us forever. And then Lucifer had to go fuck it up, and then the two of _you_ had to break the damned world -- thanks for that, by the way -- and now we're all fucked. Or maybe we're not. The only thing out there that's got more whomp than what's in this room is Cain, and he's _retired_. The world's ours, gentlemen. Whether we want it or not."

Greed shot across Crowley's eyes, and then, strangely, it passed. "Hell-adjacent or not, I've come to the conclusion that Purgatory's not worth the effort, and anthing that keeps us from dealing with certain of its inhabitants again is probably a good thing. I'm happy to be your devil, Gabriel, but only if you're more trustworthy than your little brother, here. I've had bad experiences with angels, in the last few years. If we're going to work together, you're going to have to give me a reason to trust you."

"You're living here; I'm living here. You'll either get there, or you won't." Gabriel shrugged and laid down along the back of the couch, beer bottle following his lips down, until he lifted his head to pull it away without spilling beer down his chest. "I'm not big on the idea of filling dad's shoes. That was always more Michael's thing, but I know we can't leave the angels to their own devices. Cas already tried that. Didn't really work out."

Kafziel flicked a bottlecap that bounced off Gabriel's chest and landed between Castiel and Crowley. "Fuck politics, Jibril."

"I'd rather fuck you. That bed is amazing. Whose idea was that?" Gabriel hoisted himself onto his side, without falling, his face behind and between Castiel and Crowley, when he stopped moving.

"Mine," Sam volunteered. "Cas and I did a little work in there. It's the only, um, angel-safe room we've got, right now, so, you know... keep it in there. I like this place."

"No-one's burned to death on the ceiling in here, yet," Crowley threw in. "It's still cozy."

"You shut up about my mom." No one was quite sure they'd seen Dean move, but he suddenly towered over Crowley.

"Sit the fuck down, Dean. He's a demon. They're like that," Sam sighed.

" _I'm_ a demon, Sam!"

"Yeah, Dean, you are." Bitchface #2: My brother is a dickhead.

"Ooooooh." The exact same sound from two different directions as Gabriel and Kafziel both twisted to look at Sam.

"Bitch."

"Demon."

" _You_ were one first."

" _I_ got better."

"She turned me into a newt!" Gabriel shouted from the sidelines, and Crowley blew beer out his nose.

"But, do they weigh the same as a duck?" Castiel eyed Gabriel slyly.

"You got him to sit through _Holy Grail_?" Gabriel asked the brothers, who were still glaring daggers at each other.

"Wasn't us. It was Metatron," Dean answered, without looking up from where Sam still sat.

"Metatron got you to sit through a whole Monty Python film?"

"No, he provided me with several thousand years of human popular culture."

"... Is that a fact?" Gabriel sang a few lines of Old Norse, before Castiel interrupted him.

"There is not enough alcohol in the whole of Lebanon to make either of us so intoxicated, let alone both."

"I bet there is, in Topeka."

Sam stood up so fast he slammed his shoulder into Dean's face. "No. Absolutely not. I've seen him drunk. There will not be drunken angels anywhere near my home. One? Damghan. Two? That library is irreplaceable, and it's bad enough you even know where it is. _Any_ of you. Three? Yeah, Gabe, you're the biggest badass still standing, but there's only one of you, and there are two more of _him_ out there--" He pointed at Kafziel. "--and a couple thousand angels of indeterminate loyalty who survived the fall. So, no. Let's not."

Dean cradled his face, irritatedly, checking for blood. "He's got a point."

"So, we don't get them drunk, which I gather requires an exceptional quantity of alcohol, but we can keep drinking?" Crowley asked. "Does anyone mind if I step out for a couple cases of something better than this dog's piss we've been drinking?"

"Get me something blackcurrant, would you?" Gabriel asked, holding up a twenty that no one was entirely sure the origins of.

"I don't care, as long as it's not ouzo." Kafziel's grin suggested he and ouzo had a bit of a history.

"I appreciate your taste in wine," Castiel confessed.

"Dean, do you want anything?" The fact that Sam asked the question was all the apology Dean was going to get.

Dean muttered something against his palm that Crowley seemed to understand, and in a flash, Gabriel no longer held a bill, and the demon count of the room had decremented by one.

"C'mere, Dean-o." Gabriel held out his hand. "Lemme put your face back on."

"It's not broken."

"No, but I can see the bruise starting, from here."

For all that Dean was in the habit of spitting on peace offerings and staking tricksters, he had the sense he'd be stuck with Gabriel for a long while, and it was better not to share a house with a tempestuous archangel. He stepped over the coffee table and offered his face to Gabriel, only to find Castiel's hand on him, first, and a bright blue burn that lanced through his body. He could tell Castiel was talking to Gabriel, but he couldn't make out the words.

Slowly, Dean slid to the floor, the world sparkling in pinpricks through his pain-dimmed vision. "Ok, next time? Next time the answer is no. I'll live with the bruise."

He could hear the coffee table being pulled out, and a chattering of voices above him, as hands brushed across his face and arms. "I'm ok. Really. Don't fix anything else."

And then Sam's laughter cut through the haze, and a pillow from the couch slid under Dean's head. "Dude, Cas, don't cure my brother of himself. Yeah, he's kind of a jerk, but so's your brother. I think it's what brothers are for."

An amused rumble resolved into Kafziel's voice. "It's exactly what brothers are for. Leave him be. He's a knight, isn't he? He'll heal himself."

"So, what are we going to tell Crowley?" Sam asked, and a guilty silence settled over the room.

"You hit him in the face," Castiel pointed out.

"You're the one that tried to heal a demon with your angel mojo," Sam shot back, and the room dissolved into squabbling.

Dean just relaxed against the floor. _This_ was normal. This was what families were supposed to be like.


End file.
